César Cid Turns Famous Art into Letters

César Cid wanted to bring two interests together in one personal project. He loves art and makes 3D work at the Madrid studio CESS. A 3D image can show the front, sides and back of an object. For The Artphabet, he created 26 letters from the work of famous artists. The project began with an A shaped like a Campbell's soup can.

That A comes from the work of Andy Warhol, but other letters differ. César did not simply place a famous picture on each letter. He studied the colours and shapes before building a new image. He also thought about what the objects were made from. For D, he used ideas from Damien Hirst's shark in a tank. Banksy's Girl with Balloon helped him create the letter B.

At first, he wanted each letter to match the artist's first letter. But he could not make that rule work for the whole alphabet. Edvard Munch's The Scream, for example, became the letter Z. The project was also a way for César to learn about art. He studied what makes each artist's work different and easy to recognise.

People in different countries became interested after he finished all 26 images. Their response encouraged him to offer the work in other forms. People can now buy prints to put in their homes. A book of The Artphabet is planned for early next year. César is also talking about other ways to share the collection.